We were able to target storms that we wanted to move in on near Beatrice, NE. When we were heading east to hit Lincoln before heading south to Beatrice, we noticed that we were passing Vortex 2 who were all heading west. There were about 4 dopplars on wheels and a whole heap of NOAA vehicles heading the opposite direction as us so of course we started getting nervous, haha. We had lunch at Cracker Barrel, finally some great food!, and then we decided to stay on course despite our fear that we should maybe follow the pros and ditch our whole plan of action.
We ended up heading south and that was the best thing we could've done! We were able to catch up to this storm to watch it be born and build and become monstrous which was an amazing experience in and of itself. The cumulus clouds were towering literally all around us and there wasn't a blank part of the sky because of how many of them were building and then joining forces. It was awesome to see how each plume of warm, moist air rose and cooled adiabatically and started forming clouds at the LCL each on their own. Then after they each did that they were able to join forces to create one monster of a storm. It's so awesome to see your textbook in action!
We decided to move on to get behind the storm to get to a better location for where tornadoes would actually be produced. While driving and watching this massive complex build we noticed some interesting cloud developments all around us. At one point a few of us looked out the window and saw a developing mesocyclone and the start of its rotation...it was right next to us! We alerted the other van and they took a look and we pulled off onto a nearby road to check out where we should head next. We decided to go back down the road we just came from for a little bit to see what was going to happen and when we did we got hammered with strong rain and pea-sized hail.
Our amazing crew in Van 1 positioned us perfectly through a window in the storm to dodge the dangerous low-visibility areas and onto a road that put us in AMAZING position! We started travelling down this road and stopped again to take a better look at the sky and the radar, satellite, and rotation. We had shear markers listed on the storm right next to us which was a great sign.
As we sat there, the guys were looking at what looked like the beginning of some rotation once again in the sky to our left. We were looking at it and watching it build and as I looked around a little bit I noticed that there was another meso forming to our 5 o'clock. I alerted everyone and we realized that we had to get out of there fast because we were right in the middle of two rotation mesocyclones...what we need for tornadoes. We took off down the road and found a nearby road that ran perpendicular to the storm we were just looking at so we pulled off and parked to watch the spectacular show!
We were able to see that the mesos were drawing in a significant amount of inflow into its core. We were all so excited because we thought that would be the moment we'd been waiting for this whole trip. We saw that it was rotating and that it wanted to drop something but it just wouldn't comply. We were all out of the vans in the now very cold air with our cameras held tightly on the rotation, cheering for it to drop a tornado. We were pleading, begging, and coercing it to drop something! We were in the exact position that we wanted to be in and it was the perfect show. Unfortunately, the meso was a jerk and decided to start moving on and then it slowly died off. This was pretty much the end of our journey for the day.
We were all so ecstatic that we got to see more of a potential today than yesterday but it still wasn't a tornado, unfortunately. Tomorrow we're looking to head into Norman, OK or Oklahoma City, OK to chase again. This might be one of our last chances for a few days. We're going to leave at 8:00 am to head to Wichita, KS and decide where the best area to head will be. We're stationed in Emporia, KS tonight which is about 50 miles outside of Topeka, KS.
I can say one thing though, after watching these storms develop from crystal clear blue skies to a few cumulus clouds to a few cumulus towers and then into a storm, it's truly a sight for wonder and amazement. It's so difficult to get such severe storms and supercells to form and there's so many things that have to be included into the creation of these extreme weather phenomena. Tornadoes are apparently darn near impossible to get to form and to drop from these perfect conditions too. It's almost like these storms and tornadoes are in and of themselves pure miracles of God. The way each cloud hangs so softly yet so powerfully in the sky without any help from us below. The fact that the clouds build and grow and mature on their own without any support from anything else but the atmosphere--a bunch of gases and the sun! It truly amazes me and it truly helps me to remember how small I truly am and how much we have yet to learn about this amazing planet. The best scientists, the most money, and the best equipment are still out today in the form of Vortex 2 trying to find out the bare minimum of how exactly these storms work and how tornadoes behave. How long have we lived on this planet now? We have a lot to learn and I love it!
Hope for the best!
Good night!
Storms are nothing more than the way the earth reacts to the uneven heating of the sun. The unevenness is primarily spurted up by its rotation about its own axis and its translation around the sun. The climate is the by product and storms are its presentation. Heating energy from the sun is the cause of weather and life.
ReplyDeleteGod is the cause of life.
ReplyDeleteGod is an English term to denote "That, what we don't know". One can use them interchangeably.
ReplyDelete"God" or "What we don't know" does not imply the need for a particular attitude, behavior or implementation of religion...unless, you so desire. That makes religion optional.